S05E18: The Gang Gets Addicted To Wild Magic
Background The group has fully worked through all of the rules of the workshop, and also learned about the different ways cubes can be drawn. We went up to the fourth, and top floor. Session: There are 6 mages facing outwards, all working on a shield ward to protect the tower. There’s a circle in the middle with 8 cultists all chanting a ritual similarly to the one being performed in the Temple of Bront. Surrounding the cultists are mechanical cubes that are weird to draw, something something magical energies. Looks like we can disrupt the engines to destroy the portal. In the middle there is a crack in the maddening realm of limbo. Also on the roof are the four horseman, all wearing matching armor crackling with chaotic energy. They turn to face us with unnatural coordination and speak in one voice: “Oh good. We were hoping to kill you before the master arrives.”. Um, who was on the ceiling of the 3rd floor, backflips through the floor opening to the next level so he’s right side up again, and then immediately stabs a mage to death. Carlos: What really concerns me is that this diagram implies there’s no railing around that hole. Um: You don’t think I could backflip over a railing? Taldic recognizes Kanye for taking his shirt way back when and then promptly launches a poison arrow at him - Kanye taps his scroll of pedigree and then dodges the arrow. Rose sprints forward at Kanye - not singling him out, he’s just the biggest target - and swings at him with a flaming broadsword twice. Kanye had a chance to swing back, but instead chooses to try to flirt instead. Nissa tries to shout cutting words at her, but Kanye takes some bludgeoning and fire damage anyways, only barely making the last attack glance off his shield. Esmeralda holds up her scales and begins weaving a spell in a strange language. Kanye and Carlos are confident it’s not dwarvish. Nissa isn’t familiar with the exact language or dialect, but recognizes it as some sort of infernal language. Editor’s note: Esmeralda doesn’t recognize anyone in the group either, despite Carlos having moonlighted as a false god previously. An enormous spectral horse charges the group, Carlos in front. His sacrifice means the rest of the group, while also injured, are less trampled. Roreth moves forward, carrying an enormous scythe. He runs up to Kanye after the horse runs him over, and completely misses two swings at him. Averlyth promptly summons a blazing sex demon to stun lock Rose Highhead. Carlos recognizes the roof is flooded with wild chaotic energy. Anyone casting a spell will need to roll wild magic. He then notices there’s already energy arcing between Moneybags, Taldic, and the cube engine - it doesn’t seem to be hurting them, but maybe a lightening-style chromatic orb can overload the machine and do chain damage? Carlos: I don’t know if I have to roll against an inanimate object? DM: You do, but it’s dexterity level is very low. The orb did not blow the whole thing up, despite his draconic affiliation with lightning energy. From wild magic, Carlos - miraculously- gained resistance to all damage types for the next minute. Nissa attempted to slow the wild horsemen and some mages, but they all lucked out. Kanye decides to grapple the stunned Rose and throw her into the magical dome wall. Carlos: Scott, can you read the message that I sent you? DM: Steve says, “He’s going to throw someone into the roof.” It turns out Kanye can do all the grappling his heart desires. DM: I’m impressed Jarrod! You can up with a game plan that’s not game breaking, and in fact totally legal! Roreth tries but fails to swing on him as Kanye grabs Rose to haul her into the barrier (Averlyth sends the Succubus to follow them) - she hits the wall so hard she exists the plane of existence (for one turn). Kanye dusts his hands off. “No ticket”. Taldic and Roreth are totally intimidated by Kanye. Moneybags is unimpressed - she’s used to dealing with uppity servants don’t know their place. Um sneaks up on another mage in plain sight, stabs him twice to death and then sprints over to another mage. Taldic has decided to focus on someone other than Kanye and chooses to take aim at Um as he sprints past, though he misses twice. Rose reappears from the astral plane, looks momentarily confused but then makes eye contact with her beloved Succubus and is content again. Moneybags looks Kanye dead in the eye and starts muttering in not-dwavish. DM: Kanye, I need you to make a wisdom saving throw. Nissa: I can’t see his character sheet, but I’m not excited. Kanye: 4. Nissa: Is that a -1 modifier? Kanye is now paralyzed. Moneybags then points at the horse and then points at Kanye. The horse charges over at him, but he’s frozen in his perfect fighters block stance and barrels full into Kanye but fails to knock him over. Nissa doesn’t even fall off her harness. Despite paralyzed, Kanye looks defiantly. Roreth has also decided Kanye is probably not the best target for him. Roreth swings at Averlyth, bringing her to zero - Nissa uses the magical bracer to make her shake it off. A black light comes up from below as her god inspires her return, and all her wounds heal in place. Averlyth immediately casts mirror image; four Averlyths spring up, grinning menacingly at Roreth, flipping him off 8 times. Then, taking a leaf out of Carlos’ book, she casts a guiding bolt at the Cube to the left. Cube 1 now has a noticeable crack running up the side, and has started to rattle and vibrate like an off-balanced washer. It’s still doing its thing, arcing electricity and seemingly working, but it has clearly taken damage between Carlos and Averlyth. Carlos contemplates casting a chromatic orb of cold at the cube engine, overclocking it to mine some bitcoins. Carlos bullseyes the giant cube - it splashes across the machinery. The liquid is interacting badly with the electricity, and the acid is fizzing the metal. The machine is now noticeably fucked up, or the machinery equivalent of bloodied. Doctor Snuggleface is growling at that horse, possibly having joined the magic circle. Nissa ripped a nasty fart into the magic circle. Kanye takes a moment to nod in respect, then activates the ability Need for Speed. Carlos: I like how the presence of Reese’s ended D&D immediately. Kanye contemplates his turn in extra fast speed. Kanye trips Rose - she’s knocked prone, but continues to look lovingly at the Succubus. Kanye stabs her twice very quickly, crackling with blue energy. Suddenly Kanye realizes he can take her weapon and she can’t contest it while stunned. DM: I need you to roll an insight check. Um: To know not to grab it by the hot end. Kanye is happy to inspect the flaming sword’s craftsmanship - however, when picking it up, the fire splutters out, and he can somehow instinctively tell the sword doesn’t like him. Kanye’s instinct is to woo the sword, although maybe not in the heat of battle. Kanye gives the sword to Woodhouse. The group contemplates what we’d do if Woodhouse’s eyes suddenly glowed red and the sword flared back to life. 12 seconds have passed: * Um has killed 2 dudes * Kanye has thrown someone into another plane and then stolen her weapon * Nissa has nuked the room with gas * Carlos is destroying tech * Averlyth summoned a sex demon and almost died Um didn’t get to sneak up on the next Mage down the room but he decides to stab anyways since “he came all this way”. He doesn’t die but doesn’t really react? Um decides to keep lapping the room anyways. The cultists don’t get affected by the fart cloud - they’ve smelled worse. Taldic however, falls to the ground and starts puking. Moneybags also falls to the ground, and starts puking in a more elegant and refined way, covering it up with a handkerchief. The two of them try to crawl out. Something about Roreth’s movements seems off to Averlyth - when the light of Bane illuminated her in healing, she got a better look on Roreth, and saw him to be a red Slaad underneath, with claws instead of a scythe. Roreth realizes that Averlyth saw through the illusion, sighs, and drops the disguise to reveal an abnormal red Slaad. He makes telepathic contact with Averlyth: “Now you must die.” He claws at one Averlyth clone, positive it’s the one, then hisses when it dissipates. Then he slashes at another, furious when it’s another fake and the remaining 2 Averlyths flip him off 4 times. Averlyth then proceeds to heal up the entire party (including the dog, but not Woodhouse). Carlos casts firebolt at the first engine, destroying it. When the engine explodes - like a dryer with a brick in it - it shakes itself apart. There’s a visible wave of force that radiates out, and Um and Nissa notice the portal in the middle is growing less quickly. Averlyth, Kanye and Nissa are knocked prone by the blast. Roreth-Slaad is knocked down, but continues to gaze lovingly at the Succubus. The remaining horseman, cultists, and mages were not affected, however. Kanye: Oh! Are you taking into account your resistance to all damage? Carlos: Uhhhh nothing has damaged me, so… yes? Nissa’s concentration was broken so her former gas cloud was interrupted. Nissa then farts slightly to the left, to include Moneybags and Taldic’s new location. Kanye, still crackling with energy, deliberately touches the wall. For the next minute, every flammable object Kanye touches that isn’t being worn or carried by another creature bursts into flames. Kanye touches the wall again. Kanye casts a 3rd level Fireball centered on himself. All 3 of the horseman and 2 cultists caught in the blast are going to take full damage. Nissa, Kanye, and Nissa all take half damage. The 2 cultists die; Taldic looks okay, Rose is left bloodied, and Mr. Slaad Man is also basically fine. For some reason Kanye still has attacks after that, so he attempts to push Rose into the fart cloud, but she shimmies away. So then Kanye stabs her and then ejects her into where he remembers the wreckage of engine 1 being (it’s currently in the middle of a hazy cloud). Kanye suddenly realizes that 2 x 2 = 4 and decides to use an action surge while Need for Speed is activated so he can ruin Roreth’s day be dealing 50 points of damage. Um is not sneaky either this time, but stabs a dude twice anyways. He’s bloodied but not dead. Um runs continues making his rounds. Lady Moneybags continues vomiting elegantly, Rose vomits gratuitously. Taldic manages to stand up, although he still has puke all over him. All three of them crawl out. The mage in the fart cloud reaches his limit and stops casting to maintain the shield - the roof is now exposed and unprotected. There is now a strong wind blowing from the south east. Note, the horse has not moved because it was a summon by Moneybags, who has been puking too much to control it. Taldic, ever the coward, howls in frustration as the force field comes down and all of his teammates are either puking or flirting with a demon, and yells for them to fall back towards the portal. Moneybags and Rose do their best to crawl towards the portal. Taldic goes towards Roreth to drag him away from the Succubus. Instead of taking the opportunity attack on Taldic as he gets closed to him, Kanye makes a final attack at Roreth. Taldic shoots a final arrow on the way out, misses wildly. Averlyth sends a thorn whip at Taldic to try and pull him back from the portal - Taldic holds Roreth up and it stabs him instead. Carlos runs over to cultist number 7 where Dr. Snuggleface is napping by the horse, whips it out to pee through the portal. His urine turns into a concentrated version of whatever liquid they flavor the Harry Potter vomit-flavor jelly beans from the power of the wild magic in the atmosphere. Nissa viciously mocks Taldic with psychic damage for leaving. Kanye longingly looks at the missing wall, then proceeds inward to vanquish his foes, beginning with Roreth. Then he kicks the closest cultist so hard it’s neck breaks, then soars into the portal and his body turns into a cloud of penguins that waddle away on their side of the portal. Kanye: Why do they want to go into the portal??? DM: They don’t, they want to bring something here instead. Kanye: But now they’re going into the portal???? DM: Well right now, they’re trying not to die. Kanye: But now they’re going to turn into penguins instead????? He hits Rose twice and then shoves her into the portal. She falls backwards through the portal and begins scrambling and clawing at her face in horror as a full luscious wizard beard of colorful parrot feathers erupts from her face. It tickles her nose, then she sneezes and there’s a colorful cloud of looney toons feathers. Um pulls out a crossbow, spends a few seconds looking for someone he has advantage on, then just shoots at Taldic because he hates him. Then Um Spider-Man’s his way off the tower just in case. Taldic dragged Roreth’s body into the portal, pouring a healing potion into his mouth as he went. Then he flipped off the group as an arrow goes into his chest. Then, we see their armors glow with the engines on the roof as the portal slowly closes - seems like they were part of the reaction involved. The cultists around the portal fall down dead, and the mages promptly surrender. Category:Episodes